New twist in the case of suspicion of Libyan financing of the 2017 presidential campaign. The sulphurous intermediary Ziad Takieddine, one of the main prosecution witnesses in this case, has just returned to his accusations, clearing Nicolas Sarkozy, who recently received a supplementary indictment for "criminal association".
Here are five minutes to understand this spectacular about-face.
What exactly did Takieddine say?
"I say it loud and clear, this Tournaire judge [
the former investigating judge in charge of the case, now stationed in Nanterre, Editor's note
] was kind enough to turn this in his own way and make me say words that are totally contrary to what I said […]: there was no funding for the presidential campaign by Sarkozy, ”Ziad Takieddine said in a video unveiled on Wednesday by Paris Match and BFMTV.
Libyan funding: Ziad Takieddine, main accuser of Nicolas Sarkozy, clears it from Paris Match and BFMTV pic.twitter.com/eux8O7QREJ
- BFMTV (@BFMTV) November 11, 2020
From Beirut, where he is on the run after his conviction in France in June to five years in prison in the Karachi affair, Ziad Takieddine adds: “I confirm that this is not true.
Mr. Sarkozy did not have Libyan funding for the presidential campaign, nor Mr. Gaddafi could do it because he never did ”.
If Ziad Takieddine clears Nicolas Sarkozy today, he continues to charge Claude Guéant: “All I did was give five million in cash to Claude Guéant, at my place, at home, in application of the terms of 'a security agreement between France and Libya.
"
What was Takieddine saying before this turnaround?
The very first statements by Ziad Takieddine on the suspicion of Libyan financing of Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign date back to December 2012. In the office of the examining magistrate Renaud Van Ruymbeke, in the context of the Karachi affair, the man of Franco-Lebanese Affairs proposes to put back "existing elements on the financing of the campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy of 2007 beyond 50 million euros ..."
Then, Takieddine will overwhelm the network of Alexandre Djouhri, a competing intermediary.
Before delivering, in November 2016, a shattering testimony to Mediapart, which he will then confirm before the magistrates: he declares to have conveyed, between November 2006 and early 2007, "a total of five million euros" in suitcases, during of three trips between Tripoli and Paris.
This cash was reportedly given to him by Abdallah Senoussi, the former director of military intelligence for the Libyan regime, to whom he was close.
Takieddine says he then handed it over to Claude Guéant, chief of staff of Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior.
But also to the former head of state in person.
What the latter disputes.
Questioned at least four times by the examining magistrate Serge Tournaire, Ziad Takieddine had never changed on this question.
In January 2020, during his last hearing by the successors of the magistrate, Aude Buresi and Marc Sommerer, Ziad Takieddine did not go back on these statements either.
What can this turnaround change?
Ziad Takieddine, now aged 70, is himself indicted in this case for complicity in corruption, influence peddling and complicity in the embezzlement of public funds.
His about-face a little more undermines the credit of one who is regularly described, in business circles and in the press, as a "specialist in the about-face".
"These denials irremediably demonstrate that Zyad Takieddine is not credible as a witness" immediately reacted Me Jean-Yves Dupeux, lawyer for former Minister Brice Hortefeux, witness assisted in the case.
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"The truth is out" finally, exulted Nicolas Sarkozy in a statement posted on social networks.
“The main accuser admits his lies.
He never gave me any money, never was there any illegal funding for my 2007 campaign, ”he added.
pic.twitter.com/tRHH3l0N6F
- Nicolas Sarkozy (@NicolasSarkozy) November 11, 2020
Nicolas Sarkozy, indicted in this case since March 2018 for "concealment of embezzlement of public funds", "passive corruption", "illegal financing of electoral campaign", and since mid-October for "criminal association", seized the ball to the leap.
"I ask my lawyer Thierry Herzog to file a request for dismissal for examination," he announced.
The former head of state also assured that he intended to initiate proceedings for "slanderous denunciation" against Ziad Takieddine.
For lawyer Vincent Brengarth, lawyer for the anti-corruption association Sherpa, civil party in this case, this turnaround on the contrary "does not mislead anyone and in no way destroys the elements in the file.
"Journalist Fabrice Arfi, from Mediapart, who is investigating the case, has ridiculed a pirouette which" fits perfectly with Sarkozy's new defense strategy in the Libyan affair: charge Guéant, undercut Gaubert, absolve Sarkozy ".
[THREAD] In Paris Match, Ziad Takieddine, ruined and on the run (after his conviction in Karachi), delivers a new version in the Libyan affair, which, miraculously, spares Sarkozy a month after he was indicted for "conspiracy".
- Fabrice Arfi (@fabricearfi) November 11, 2020
What is in the file?
The "Libyan" investigation was opened after the publication by Mediapart in 2012, between the two presidential rounds, of a document supposed to prove that the victorious campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy, five years earlier, had been financed. by the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
In nearly eight years of work, the magistrates have gathered a sum of disturbing clues which gave substance to this theory.
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Libyan case: an increasingly heavy case for Nicolas Sarkozy
However, no indisputable material evidence has yet been found, even though suspicious movements of funds have led to nine indictments to date.
Last protagonist worried in this file, Thierry Gaubert.
This former collaborator of Nicolas Sarkozy was indicted in January for "criminal association", suspected of having received on February 8, 2006 a transfer of 440,000 euros from the Libyan regime of Gaddafi.
The funds passed through a company called Rossfield and owned by a certain… Ziad Takieddine, long one of his close friends.
Moreover, the case is not based only on the accusations of Ziad Takieddine, but also on other elements such as testimonies from Libyan dignitaries or notes from the Tripoli secret services.
